$640MM Mega Millions Jackpot - Page 4

Actually the odds of not splitting it were closer to 3%. Here's the quote:

Forbes
If you knew no one else could play, it would make sense to buy a ticket. In fact, you should buy all the numbers. You’d invest $176 million and haul in almost triple that.

Alas, other people have heard about this jackpot. So what are the odds on sharing? In the past decade there have been 13 shared jackpots. Three jackpot winners neglected to claim their prizes; they were from Brooklyn, Queens and an unidentified place in New York State.

History, though, is an imperfect judge of odds. Here’s how to do it with a calculator.

Call the number of tickets sold T. Call that 175.7 million figure X. Use ^ as the sign for exponents (2^3, for example, means 2x2x2). Call the base of natural logarithms e (it’s roughly 2.718).

If you did win, what are the odds that no one else won? It equals (1-1/X)^T. That’s a mess, but a very close approximation is e^(-T/X). Comes to 0.03 on my calculator when I assume that T = 616 million.

Translation: If you do win, there’s only a 3% chance you’ll have the big prize to yourself.

Odds there will be exactly one other winner? Take the 0.03 and multiply by T/X. I get 0.105. So there’s a 10.5% chance that if you win, you will be splitting the pot in two.

Odds for two other winners: take the last number you had, multiply by T/X again and divide by 2. Now you have 0.184.

For three other winners: previous number, multiplied by T/X and divided by 3. Now you’re up to 0.216.

This could go on, but the numbers start to get pretty small. There’s only a 1.7% chance that if you win you’ll be splitting the prize 9 ways.

And daut they posted in forbes online article here saying same thing. So I'm sure millions of people did the same thing. Not that it matters, still a much better bet.

A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. - Ayn Rand

On March 31 2012 03:34 Baalim wrote:
wtf, am i really the only one puzzled about everybodys insistence on ticket equity, who gives a shit if your $1 ticket has a .70ev or a 1.40ev people.. it doesnt change anything, 1 in 175 million is pragmatically the same as 2 in 175 million... and for that mater even 30k isnt really that significant difference in reality.

you are definitely right, it becomes a kelly criterion problem. there are consolation prizes for getting 5 numbers, 4 numbers, 4 numbers+mega number right etc, but on a 30k investment you are going to lose about 29k the vast majority of the time. but still, kelly criterion only advocates betting when it is +EV, and in that case you should probably risk about 1 millionth your net worth. if its -EV you should never bet

On March 31 2012 03:34 Baalim wrote:
wtf, am i really the only one puzzled about everybodys insistence on ticket equity, who gives a shit if your $1 ticket has a .70ev or a 1.40ev people.. it doesnt change anything, 1 in 175 million is pragmatically the same as 2 in 175 million... and for that mater even 30k isnt really that significant difference in reality.

you are definitely right, it becomes a kelly criterion problem. there are consolation prizes for getting 5 numbers, 4 numbers, 4 numbers+mega number right etc, but on a 30k investment you are going to lose about 29k the vast majority of the time. but still, kelly criterion only advocates betting when it is +EV, and in that case you should probably risk about 1 millionth your net worth. if its -EV you should never bet

extremely unlikely even if its EV+ that Kelly Criterion would dictate a 30k bet from them, i have no idea how big the BR has to be, but i has to be many millions.

Also Kelly Criterior is incomplete when we take emotion into the equation, unlike many of you i dont consider idiots the ppl who buy lotto tickets (that dont have supersicion or spend significants amounts of money), because as for little as $1 you have pretty much the same "i might win" sensation that 30k gives you but with none of the drawbacks.

Let me disagree with you and my argument is not about emotion.
I think it is irrational not to bet here even though its -EV. The argument is that you have a limited time to live so even though you are betting as an underdog you still have to do it because you have nothing to loose ($1 or even $1000k) and you have everything to win ($500mil).

Example:
Playing without a goal keeper in football or hockey is VERY -ev. But when there is not much time left on the clock and the team is loosing it would be wrong to keep a man in the goal. Who cares if you lost by one goal or 3 or 10?

Who would care if your net worth is 100k or 99k? You got a limited time living on this planet.

In US everyone is happy as long as all the prices are rising. Unless its crude oil - Marc Faber

!! What's the ket method, what happens when you pick a number between 32 and 56 lol

im guessing that its the least likely combination that will result in a split pot, since people use birthdays for their numbers (12 months and 31 days) there will be more people with tickets containing those numbers.

unless you are a busto or a cheapo you aren't gonna even care or notice if $5 fell out of your pocket or you got hit w/ an unexpected $5 parking garage cost, or any other number of random occurrences that make you $5 poorer

unless you are crazy you are going to realize if you are $350mil richer

as baal said there are other emotional things to consider like hope.

on the other side of possibly winning is shame, embarrassment, infamy, etc.

also, to consider there is not infinite number of opportunities and opportunities are never identical

for probably like 95% of the population lotto is their only realistic chance at freeroll life money

there are probably plenty of more considerations but jus sayin ev and kelly criterion are not even close to being complete models for a lot of decision making in life.

Exactly, Cosmo's post about Kelly Criterion really doesnt imlly that buying a $1 ticket underolled is a bad decision, it can be a good one, but it does show that the 30k investment was absolutely retarded.

The problem comes when ppl spend a significant amount of money on the lotto, just a couple hours ago i saw on the news that poor people spend 9% of their income in lottery... that is a terrible decision even if its their only chance at being wealthy.

Let me disagree with you and my argument is not about emotion.
I think it is irrational not to bet here even though its -EV. The argument is that you have a limited time to live so even though you are betting as an underdog you still have to do it because you have nothing to loose ($1 or even $1000k) and you have everything to win ($500mil).

Example:
Playing without a goal keeper in football or hockey is VERY -ev. But when there is not much time left on the clock and the team is loosing it would be wrong to keep a man in the goal. Who cares if you lost by one goal or 3 or 10?

Who would care if your net worth is 100k or 99k? You got a limited time living on this planet.

i agree with you, but no, buying lotto tickets for amounts of money with no impact at all in your life is actually a good decision.

Sadly most lotto players spend amounts of money that does affect their lives.

On April 01 2012 20:39 Baalim wrote:
Exactly, Cosmo's post about Kelly Criterion really doesnt imlly that buying a $1 ticket underolled is a bad decision, it can be a good one, but it does show that the 30k investment was absolutely retarded.

The problem comes when ppl spend a significant amount of money on the lotto, just a couple hours ago i saw on the news that poor people spend 9% of their income in lottery... that is a terrible decision even if its their only chance at being wealthy.

9% of what I assume is welfare money to begin with. Talk about freerolling!